As disclosed in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,148,701, granted Apr. 10. 1979, and in my subsequent U.S. patent application cited hereinabove, and in the references cited therein, it has previously been proposed to dissociate gases by irradiating them with coherent radiation from laser apparatus; and mercury vapor gas discharge tubes have previously been proposed for use in the implementation of photochemical reactions.
In many cases, however, the reactant has high absorption to frequencies in the ultraviolet frequency band when high levels of radiation are present. Up to the present time it has not been practical to obtain very high intensity ultraviolet radiation on a commercial scale and at a reasonable cost.
Accordingly, a principal object of the present invention is to provide a relatively simple apparatus for the production of high intensity, high frequency ultraviolet irradiation for use in ionizing gases, in photochemical processes, and particularly for the dissociation of water vapor to form hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide.